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Parents expend considerable effort preparing children for the challenges ahead but little attention is typically paid to helping them communicate in emotionally meaningful ways. Emotional literacy empowers children to identify feelings within themselves, draw distinctions, understand subtleties, and verbalize their emotions with sincerity and consideration of others. This capacity to translate feelings into precise language can be nurtured at even young ages but opportunities abound throughout childhood.

Emotional eating goes out the window with holiday stress. And so does losing weight. But the real holiday stress is not the rushing around (not that there isn't any of that) but it's the uncertainty of all your plans working out for the season.

Well, another day and I stumbled upon an article on anti-bullying efforts in the State of Massachusetts. This is one of the few states left in this nation that does not have a law on the books towards stopping bullying. Why it has taken so long I have no idea. However, the important thing is that progress is being made and there are some who have stepped up and spoken out. One young lady stated that she had to move to another school because she was abused relentlessly by her peers. This affected her friendships and grades in school.

A recent study was conducted by the Finnish National Social Insurance Institution and the Sigrid Juselius Foundation in Finland. This involved children starting at age 8 by using the Ritter Scale in screening for emotional and behavioral problems. This group was followed up to the age of 24. What was studied was how bullying affected the subjects psychologically.

Recently, an article came out about the Girl Scouts of Western Pennsylvania and that through the week of October 19-25 they would be seeking out various members of the community in trying to promote better awareness of the problem of Relational Aggression that exists amongst girls and women today.

Cyberbullying has been a serious problem in this nation for a long time. Missouri has had a well known history of this with the Megan Meier case that occurred in 2006. Not long ago, a ninth grader was arrested under this law when she created a nasty website against another classmate. "She would be better off if she just died" was a comment used on there. The bully has been turned over to the juvenile system. The current law went into affect in August 2008 and has caught others under this law.

When I first entered the field of neuro development about 15 years ago the number of children with autism was about 1 out of every 650 children. Since then we have witnessed a drastically rising tide in the incidence of autism. Recently the Schafer Report and the CDC announced a staggering new figure; 1 out of every 91 children are now affected by autism. This is a 7 fold increase in a very few years.

As I was watching the local news last evening, I happened to see a segment on the issue of zero tolerance on there. Basically, local school districts were giving their policies and procedures as to how they handle this problem within their schools. The parents were complaining that zero tolerance was too strict and needed to be handled on a case to case basis.

Another week of education on this serious topic that really needs more attention. The problem of bullying which I always refer to as Peer Abuse. I call it the “B” word because it’s the one word that society wants to hang on to. As society hangs onto this word, I also read an article where it was stated that nothing could be done about the problem of bullying in this nation. What do I say to that? Hogwash!